


Of Love and its Forms

by FlitShadowflame



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-04 13:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlitShadowflame/pseuds/FlitShadowflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a <a href="http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/3651.html?thread=6976067#t6976067">prompt</a> on the HKM: "Thorin/Dwalin, soulmates AU"</p><p>With a new, incredibly short chapter!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dwalin, a dwarf of many marks

Dwarves are not like the other races. Their great stories are of treasure and valorous combat - not love, certainly not a devotion that is tested in great tasks. There are no Berens and Luthiens among them, though they know of the tale because of their trade relationships, with Men and Elves.

They see no point in sharing such a tale with their children.

It is not that Dwarves cannot love - indeed, they love more singly than most mortals could imagine. A Dwarf's heart belongs to one and only one, they will settle for no other. But sometimes their One is unattainable, and sometimes they love their crafts more, too much to devote time to a marriage and family. And Dwarf-women are few. Many of the greatest loves between Dwarves will yield no children, because the partners are both male. They need not always lie together: some are shield-brothers, others are even brothers in blood, too dear to be parted.

Dwalin knows well his brother is not his One, but that is about all he knows for sure. And even that, only because his brother found his One already, and it would be too cruel for Mahal to do that to him. Unreturned love is common enough, to Dwarves, but never among siblings. Not that Dwalin has heard of.

There are little ways to know for sure, if he finds his own One. But they do not comfort him. The birthmark he bears was indistinct even before a scar bisected it; he does not know what symbol it could possibly represent. Balin's feather-shaped mark had been clear, even if its meaning was not, not for decades.

Old wives' tales speak of dreaming your beloved's voice, but all Dwalin dreams are of past battles and endless marching drills.

Childish games have several theories; that you can blow a dandelion clock and count the seeds to see what letter your One's name begins with, that if you chew mint and close your eyes you will see your One's face, that if you list as many names as you can think you will find the one that feels right on your tongue...

Dwalin is too old for such games, now, though he tried them all in his time. Perhaps he loves his blacksmithing more than he thought, or perhaps his One is gone already, lost to Smaug or Azanulbizar. Maybe it is better that he does not know, and his heart is trying to spare him that knowledge by keeping this secret.

Fili and Kili climb all over him like little monkeys, brats that they are, and it is their laughter that drags him back to the present. Their birthmarks need no deciphering, but Dis has fretted over them all the same. It is obvious to anyone with eyes that they belong to each other, they have ever since Kili was born. For five years, Fili was quiet and reserved, polite with everyone but affectionate only with his mother. Kili changed everything. Fili wanted to show him the whole world, and suddenly he was sweet and generous and loving with his whole family as well, wanting to be a "good example," Dwalin had overheard him tell Dis once.

"Uncle Dwalin why you have so many marks? Me 'n Fili only have one," Kili pouts at him. Fili tries to hush the younger dwarfling, but Dwalin just laughs.

"These are scars, youngling, not birthmarks. I only have one birthmark, just like you and Fili."

"Can I see?" Kili asks, wide eyed.

"Kili!" Fili says, scandalized. Dwalin does not mind the little one's curiosity, though he knows that will not be something Kili can count on in other circumstances.

"You are an impertinent brat," he tells Kili fondly. "You should not ask such things. But you are young, so this once it is alright." He unstraps the knuckle-duster on his right arm.

Kili's tiny fingers cling to Dwalin's huge ones as he inspects the back of Dwalin's hand.

"Is it a ring? That's another scar on top of it, isn't it!"

Fili, despite knowing better, can't resist taking a look. "Maybe it's a crown? Cut in twain...it seems awfully por-ten-tous," he sounds out the word carefully. "Begging your pardon, Uncle Dwalin."

Oin must have been responsible for tutoring that week.

Truthfully, Dwalin had not even considered if the placement of his scar had meaning to the birthmark. But now that Fili has mentioned it, he wonders if something happened to his One after all, and perhaps he will be alone for all his days.

Fili's other comment did not register to Dwalin until Thorin came home from the forges, sooty and hungry, giving Dis and the children whiskery kisses and knocking skulls with Dwalin.

A crown, cut in twain.

Thorin is not close kin to Dwalin, but their distant blood is more than made up for by their decades of loyalty and friendship. Because Balin knew Thorin first, and has Thorin's confidence in a way Dwalin was not, he had always assumed his bond with the prince was that of a vassal's. It is only here, in the noisy squalor of the refugee camp, with little dwarflings poking and prodding at scars, that Dwalin thinks more clearly on their relationship.

His is not a vassal's love. They are closer than that, _more_. But shield-brother is not enough, either. He does not know what he feels for Thorin, what sort of love (for surely it must be love of some sort, even if it is love for a brother and a king and a comrade, not for his One).

And yet, the more he thinks, the more he starts to believe.


	2. Thorin, who lives for many but because of One

Thorin was still very young when Erebor fell. He had not, at that point, given much thought to his mark. There was a young dwarrowdam his father meant to have him marry, and they flirted and spent a great deal of time together, but...dragonfire had only singed Durin's line. Thorin's betrothed was consumed by it. His nightmares of her death faded after only a decade, because he had been young and he had not yet loved her.

And she was not his fated One. His self-hatred at finding a bright side to losing Erebor was violent and dark, but he never spoke of it to anyone. Dis had been too young to really understand the betrothal, and Frerin had lost his One in those fires, so Thorin could never tell his brother. And who else could he share such roiling guilt with? Balin, whose wife is beautiful and loyal and kind? Balin does not deserve this conversation.

So he told no one, and as years went by, it grew easier to pretend that he was one of many who had loved and lost too young. His mark was plain, simple - maybe too simple, for a king. A club, it seemed to him, at his right wrist. It could mean anything.

Fili was almost twenty before he let slip that he had seen Dwalin's mark.

"What in Mahal's name did he show you for?" Thorin growled, feeling oddly possessive.

"K-Kili asked. He was still a babe, at the time, he didn't know..." Fili's face was red. "It was only a circle, a ring or some such. I mean - I shouldn't have - "

"No, you shouldn't," Thorin sighed. "It's alright, Fili. You were young, you _are_ young, and Kili has a way of sticking his foot in it...and getting what he wants, even when he shouldn't have it."

Why did it bother him, Thorin wondered. Dwalin had only been teaching the boys something, albeit something more private, something only a mother or father should explain...but they had no father, and Dis was...changed, with the loss of him. She smiled less, and spoke little. The wound would heal, but such grief did not simply pass...Frerin had barely known his One when he lost her, but he was never the same, and Thorin privately suspected he'd let himself fall in battle rather than continue living without her as he had been.

He supposed he should be thankful to his brother, for waiting to the end of the war before giving in to the grief that plagued him for so much of his short life. Dis at least had sons to live for, he reminded himself when he worried too much about her.

Thorin had no one - not true, he knew it was unfair. He lived for the boys, too, loved them like they were his own, had named them his heirs happily. And he lived for Dis, whose heart had suffered so much pain already and did not need the additional burden his death would proove. He lived for all his people, that they might have a leader in these trying times.

And...if he did not live _for_ Dwalin, certainly he lived _because_ of Dwalin. His ever-faithful guard had saved his life uncountable times. Balin was his conscience, his greatest advisor, but Dwalin...Dwalin was his right hand - no.

His right fist, he thought, lips quirking up in a ghost of a smile. And his eyes drifted to the mark on his arm and he wondered. Had Fili seen a circle? Was it a ring, like the ring of power Thrain had lost?

Or, perhaps, a crown...?


	3. Doubts and Devotion

For more than a hundred years, Dwalin has remained at Thorin's side. It seems so obvious now, looking back on that time, on secret smiles and knowing silences. But to broach the subject with his prince, his king...Dwalin is not dwarf enough for that. The possibility that he read in more than is there stops him cold. Thorin had been betrothed, Before Smaug. What if Dwalin is only his sworn shield?

What if he decides Dwalin would be better suited to other work, far away from him? Dwalin cannot think of anything worse than being sent away. He would rather guard his secret and his One, than confess and be rejected.

Dwalin's plans do not factor in Thorin Oakenshield, however.

"Did you know?" Thorin asks, startling Dwalin in his chambers.

"M'lord?" he frowns.

Thorin stalks forward like a great cat, rolling back his sleeve. "There are many who have tried to stir my heart, and there are many who have pretended devotion to me. Of them all, only one has been unquestionably loyal, steadfast, and - even more importantly than that - only one has had the ability to soothe me just by his presence. Until this night I never knew how sorely I would feel the loss of you, because I never imagined a world without you in it. With my eyes opened - " Thorin rubs a thumb over his wrist. "You are my One and my right hand, Dwalin Fundinson, and I wish for you to remain so always. I will waste no more of our lives with regrets and self-pity."

Dwalin gapes at him for a moment before Thorin offers the mark for him to see. It is blobby and indistinct as his own, but it seems like a clenched fist to him. He takes off his knuckledusters to present his own mark to Thorin. "You are my king and my commander. My friend, my brother-closer-than-blood. I am yours, now and forever, and you are mine, my One and my king."


End file.
